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Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson: "Forget the judges"

The series two winner and Waterloo Road star has advice for this year's hopefuls...

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1:15 PM, 31 March 2012

Britain’s Got Talent kicked off last weekend with a brand-new series - and former winner George Sampson, who is about to appear in cinemas with his new 3D movie StreetDance 2 and is currently starring in the BBC’s popular school-set drama Waterloo Road, has this advice for the new batch of contestants.

Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, he said, “Forget the judges because they’re not judging your talent, even though it’s called Britain’s Got Talent. They’re judging your performance.”

Criticising some of the show’s acts, he continued, “You get people who want to get the right notes when they sing and to do that they just stand there – and you think, ‘you’re not getting anything from that’."

Turning his attention to the judges, he said, “I mean, Simon knows his stuff about music but the other people – David Walliams, Amanda [Holden] and Alesha [Dixon] – are known for other stuff so you have to entertain them as a whole, you have to put on a performance.

“Don’t so much worry about the skill, worry about the performance. Because they can only judge you on how you perform. You may not have the best voice in the world, you may; it doesn’t matter as long as you perform well. You can go through on that alone. You [also] have to have a likeability factor if the public vote, and people only vote if they like you, so make sure you put your good performance across.”

George, who has appeared on the West End stage and has a part in the second series of Sky 1 HD comedy Mount Pleasant, due to air in August, is enjoying the opportunities that appearing on the country’s biggest talent show has brought.

“The West End was amazing but it’s not what I want to do. I want to do different things,” he said.

Such as taking up a position as a judge on a show like Britain’s Got Talent?

At 18, he’s not sure he’s old enough to cut it. “Well, I don’t know. When Alesha first came round they said she’s kind of young and stuff. And I think if I did I’d get murdered. But she’s proved she can do it. I think maybe I could… maybe I could."

And quite possibly, he’s even got his eye on Simon Cowell’s seat: “I look up to Simon in the sense that he’s very business-minded. He knows what he wants and he gets it. That’s something I want to be able to do. When I reach that age, I want to be able to just be like that – to be powerful and say, ‘This is what I want, I’m not going to stop until I get it’."